ing lands, and to send out other bands of emigrants, taking little care to define the boundaries of the new grants, or to avoid ceding to one company or individual the very tract already bestowed upon another. This negligence was the cause of much subsequent dispute and difficulty. A few persons also established themselves at various points along the coast, who had no formal title to any land, but who were afterwards generally admitted to have an imperfect right, founded on occupancy and prescription. Some few fishing settlements were thus established; but their inhabitants had not the disposition to toil, the habits of order and self-denial, or the indomitable perseverance which characterized the Puritans. All their establishments were subsequently absorbed by the Massachusetts colony, which became the chief agent in the settlement of New England.
The persecution of all who would not conform to the Established Church still continuing in England, and king Charles having avowed his purpose to govern without a Parliament, many of the wealthier class of Puritans now determined to emigrate to America. A company was formed at the instigation of Mr. White, a clergyman of Dorchester; among its members were John Humphrey and Isaac Johnson, two brothers-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln, John Winthrop, a gentleman of landed property in Suffolk, Sir Richard Saltonstall, John Endicott, Thomas Dudley, William Coddington, Richard Bellingham, Matthew Cradock, and other merchants and lawyers of wealth and influence in London and some of the northern and midland counties. They obtained from the Council for New England a grant of a tract of land, bounded by two parallel lines running westward to the Pacific Ocean, one drawn three miles north of any part of the Merrimac river, and the other, three miles south of any portion of the Charles. Soon afterwards, their organization was completed by a charter from the Crown, which incorporated them under the title of the 'Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England,' with power to admit what new members or freemen they might choose. They were supposed to be a private trading corporation, resident in England, where they were to make laws and regulations for the government of their colony in America. A governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants were to have the management of their affairs; and these officers were to be chosen, and all important laws enacted, at a 'Great and General Court' of all the freemen, to be held quarterly. A company of sixty or seventy persons, under John Endicott, were sent out in 1628, who commenced a settlement at Salem; and these were followed, the next year, by six ships, bringing about two hundred colonists, of whom many were indented servants, together with a stock of cattle and other necessaries. It was soon manifest, however, that a colony, to be prosperous, must have the management of its own affairs, without being obliged to wait for orders from a distance. John Winthrop and many other leading stockholders offered to emigrate, if they were allowed to carry the charter and the government along with them. The legality of such a measure was at least doubtful; but the urgency of the case removed all scruple, and the colonists probably hoped that the remoteness of their new home would screen their procedings from public notice. New officers were therefore chosen from those who were disposed to emigrate; and in 1630, a fleet of fifteen ships, equipped at an expense of £20,000, sailed from the Isle of Wight, having on board Winthrop and Dudley as governor and deputy-governor, together with most of the assis-
